Inherent Meaning
by ErikaItsumi
Summary: Filicia Heideman is sent to a military hospital specifically for mental cases after seeing the death of her friends during the Battle of Vingt. While battling the claustrophobic conditions of the institution, she must also come to terms with her own demons.
1. Chapter 1

A deafening ring ripped through the peaceful atmosphere as wall-mounted bells all over the building screamed. The building's occupants on both floors, some with frustration and others with resignation, covered their ears to wait out the intolerable length of their shrieking report. Only those who had lost an unfortunate amount of their hearing were spared this expense as they carried on with their activities in apathy. After having woken, startled, or annoyed everyone inside, the bells, satisfied with their work, stopped to rest for yet another hour. Before silence could regain its hold, the sound of heavy footsteps appeared and climaxed as a man clothed in white parted the double doors to the recreational room with purpose.

"Lunch time!"

With that short statement he left with haste, making his rounds throughout the floor with equal brevity. Taking the chance that the majority the patients were in the recreational room, and not caring if they weren't, he quickly finished his chore by reporting the news to no more than two other places before returning to his preoccupation of relaxation; the heavy footsteps slowly fading until they could be heard no more.

Receiving the news, many patients shuffled their way out in the direction of the cafeteria. Those who needed assistance were taken in hand by nurses or the rare friend and escorted with care; that is unless they resisted. The lanky, awkward march of the disheveled crowd as they emptied out the room would have never lead one to believe that these young yet old men were once in the military, just as the distraught and broken state of the more seriously ill would have left one wondering if they were even men at all. Only a handful of individuals were left in the room, caught up in their own little world as they continued with what they were doing, indifferent to the idea of sating one's hunger. Finally, there was quiet once more.

Filing down the corridor, Filicia Heideman swam with the school of hungry fish. Tormented incessantly from a lack of sleep, her stride was a more a result of muscle memory than coordinated thought as her mind wandered from thought to thought—the gnawing hunger and how to survive another day. Her dead gaze, expressionless face, and zombie-like walk all attested to her poor state. Her hair was a mess, her glasses missing; even she hardly recognized herself anymore. Even so, she didn't bother to make herself presentable. A look in the bathroom mirror scared her too much to make sure she looked nice in the morning, because when she looked in the mirror she didn't see herself; she herself had died at Vingt.

Gone was her humble green uniform, a savior in winter and a nuisance in summer. Though it was often a source of discomfort, she remembered it fondly with envy as she still tried to adjust to wearing a crudely made bathrobe and skim pajamas which would have done little to keep her warm except during the infernal summer. No elegant stripes adorned her arm, leaving her feeling as if she wasn't herself anymore. No trusty sidearm sat holstered where it always had been, the one which had saved her life on many occasions. She felt truly alone without any companions, alive or inanimate.

But all previous misfortunes were of naught when compared to what kept her awake every night, what bit at her heart and soul every conscious moment—her real companions, her squad mates, her dear friends.

They, too, were gone.

But how quickly she had mentally slapped herself across the cheek, reprimanding herself for letting such a thought enter her conscious. She wasn't quick enough, however, since it did enter her consciousness with crushing effect as her head visibly sunk lower as she formed up in the long lunch line, not caring to even estimate how far away she was from receiving another lackluster meal. Minutes past by as the line slowly moved up, and with each passing minute she struggled to contain her emotions as they whirled violently in her. Her throat burned with a peculiar string as she battled with her mind, trying to hold the tears in.

 _I can't let this happen. I need to get better. I WILL get better_

Before she knew it she was heading to an empty table, a tray full of the same food she ate the day before and the day before that in her hands. As she slowly spoon fed herself, she reflected with lamentation on the past month.

It had been a little over a month ago since that tragic event happened, when she was saved by the Princess and brought to safety. A month since she had been put in L'Institut Tranquil, a military hospital specifically designed for mental patients. In fact, the only one in the entire country. Every week or so a couple of new cases would come in and be given their bunk. Filicia had pity on them, for they had no idea what they were getting themselves into, as if they even came here willingly in the first place. Filicia had pity on everyone in the building, at least the patients. They were the damned, beyond salvation. They were destined, unless by a miracle or through their own miraculous ability, to waste away here until their death. They were never again to feel the sunlight against their face, the wind blowing coolly in their hair, or the sound of chirping birds. This was the fate of most.

Her hand shook with anger as she brought another spoonful to her mouth. It wasn't fair, she thought, a cruel injustice. Whereas surgeons can be trained by the finest medical schools of the age and save lives through procedures and operations which defy the mind, how they can take a man with his guts hanging out and give him a hefty chance to live, it should be seen as a blessing. But how many people take it for granted as a simple expectation of the times? An angry expression formed which would have been all the more apparent if her eyes weren't closed to better hide the tears.

 _Where are our surgeons? Our specialists? Where are our miracles?_

Her mind screamed out in envy as she reflected of the kinds of treatment she and her mates were given. So much of her time is spent in the company of her own kind, other patients like her, or those that are worse off than her. She has seen no operations, no doctors. The only thing anyone thinks to do is bring local priests in for local blessings and words of encouragement. Their healing can only be spiritual or from the divine. Every few days or so they come, say their prayers, and leave. While the wounded can be put on the table and made to heal, she lamented and how her wounds would be given no such mercy. They would have to heal on their own or she would die from them. She thought back to the priests that blessed her, those that had passed her thus far. She saw the looks they gave her. "What was wrong with her," they thought. They were told they would be tending to the sick, but they were hard-pressed to find anyone who fit the bill.

She had never felt more envious of the wounded, those with missing arms, legs, or those bleeding out on the cold ground. She would have rather been shipped home a quadriplegic and reduced to a street beggar than sent to this dull prison on that long, endless truck ride. She would have rather spent an eternity in a pine box six feet under her native soil than spend another hour in this suffocating cafeteria.

Why was she the first one out? Why was she the fastest? Why was she assigned her station and not someone else's? She looked up at the roof, hoping to peer through the ceiling up into the heavens and into the eyes of God Himself. Why did He mock her? Why did He give her the winning lottery ticket—a generous ticket to continue her life and take in its splendors? Her brow shot downward as her hands suffocated themselves in a tight fist.

 _What about me was worth saving?_

Like when a weak and sluggish man wins the 100 meter dash, she asked herself with a raging curiosity how such a thing could be possible. Her captain was beautiful, kind, and always encouraging. She always knew what to say and when to say it. Yet, for such an optimistic individual, she always had a cool head that never expected anything but the harsh reality of the world. But she was not good enough? Her other best friends and crew mates, who made her laugh and smile, they were her only companions. They had that cherished ability to make her forget about the war and to allow her, albeit for a short moment in time, to think herself not a no-nothing but a girl living a carefree life. They were not good enough?

But herself? The one who had to be held like a child to make the shaking stop on the eve of battle, the one who needed to hear her captain's reassuring voice to make her heart stop pounding in her chest and allow her to do her job—she herself was worthy?

If the knives and utensils were not so intentionally dull by mandate, she would have proven the institution's point by ending herself then and there.

 _No, no. Those thoughts aren't good_

In an attempt to calm herself, she rested her head in her hands which still violently shook despite being supported by two arms as they rested upon the cold table. She had to get herself to together. Self-harm was the last option. She had too much dignity left to resort to such a practice. Despite her sleep deprivation, fatigue, and overwhelming apathy, she still had enough willpower to not be the cause of her own death, to falter and give up.

It's not that she didn't want to give up; she wanted to give up. She wanted to crawl up in a ball and hope that her consciousness would fade away. She wanted to hope that she could close her eyes and open them up again to see herself surrounded by her friends. Every part of her body was crying out for rest—her bones, muscles, brain, and soul—but she could not be the one to deliver this blow herself. Despite hoping to see Death in his shrouded chariot descend and claim her as his next, she refused to be the one to make him come down here.

As she allowed herself a glance around, she realized that even Death would feel pity when coming down here to retrieve a soul, for both the dead and the damned—this place could double as a medieval prison. Although it lacked the fortified castle walls and torture chamber, this place shared the same dull visage. Everything about the hospital seemed dull. Although nearly every room was painted, the colors were horribly washed out. The vibrant and uplifting core of the colors were faded to somewhere on the verge of gray. Faint blue, faint green, and bleak gray were the most prominent ones colors one could see around the institution. Simple hardwood floors and, in certain rooms, dirty white tiles found themselves were trampled upon every day by the patients. The outside was no better—cracked and chipped bricks formed the thick walls to the institution. Heavy gray iron bar doors separated the detainees from restricted areas or areas that could only be entered with supervision. All the windows had on them a layer of the same iron bars to prevent patients from escaping. This place was indeed a prison, and Filicia felt akin to a caged animal. Thin hallways suffocated the patients when they passed by in a mob, where only two men abreast could manage to squeeze through. The only exception was the main hallway which ran down the middle of the floor and out on the sides in a giant plus, but it was always crammed with an assortment of wheelchairs, gurneys, and carts. It was common for patients to begin "the works" in their robes at the beginning of one of the thin hallways, sometimes shivering, flowing with the claustrophobic conglomerate of human mass until reaching the other side hot and sweaty. For a place designed for mental illness, this placed seemed to reinforce stress instead of alleviating it.

As she delved deeper into her thoughts, the ever present mantra echoed within her—caged animal. The mandatory following of routine and regime forced her to rise at a certain hour, made her eat at a certain hour, and made her retire at a certain hour. No longer did she have the liberty to decide these things for herself, but now these things would be decided for her, leaving her often times questioning the validity of her own humanity. The constant supervision by the doctors and orderlies, the latter much more numerous than the former, made her feel targeted. Her every move was watched, her every action accounted for. To them she was not a person, but another patient to exert their dominance over. To them she was just another crazy. The locked doors and iron jail bars spread across the building reinforced her paranoia of her own inferiority. Every time she eyed them, she couldn't help but feel that they were there because of her, to keep her and those like her away from the outside world. Why would she be in a place like this if there wasn't something truly wrong with her?

As she once again became restless, her mind held her by the throat, unwilling to let her sanity escape, whispering into her ear the heart-stirring motif—caged animal. Her room had a door and lock identical to those meant to keep enemies of the state in place for their execution on death row. The bed was made out of an infernal metal where thin bedsheets did nothing to alleviate its purpose as a near instrument of torture. It gripped her in ice during the intolerable winters when no one ever had enough blankets and it added to the humid, stuffy oven she was supposed to call home during the hot days of summer. In this ways the facility could save money by having each cell double as its occupants' own torture chamber. Her room was only big enough to provide the thinnest of walkways between her bed and the cold brick wall to the door. A heated bright light burned incessantly throughout the night, 24 hours a day, to ensure that the patients could be kept an eye on easily, driving many patients more insane than they already were.

As she reviewed all these things in her mind, she affirmed to herself that this place was just the intolerable hellhole she thought it was; perhaps she deserved it. Perhaps she should indeed get used to be a caged animal?

This flow of thought was quickly interrupted by the dropping of a lunch tray as the patients lined up in another long line to turn in their trays and retreat back into their cherished allowed times of freedom. The sound was near deafening as the acoustics amplified it. While everyone jumped or leapt to cover their ears as a reflex, Filicia did neither. Her awareness and her consciousness had regressed to a more primal state—fear.

Through a torturous illusion she saw an event that took place two months ago. No matter how hard she closed her eyes, straining her forehead as if brute force alone would save her, it was to no avail as she was forced to watch in her mind the scenes of that dark night play out once again. She saw the claustrophobic space of her mech tank and everything within illuminated by a red light which sought to preserve as much night vision as possible. She saw in her peripheral the faces of her friends, sweat dripping down their brows as they attended to their stations. She heard the god awful, deafening pings and bangs as bullets and anti-tank rounds were deflected, bouncing off harmlessly due to her captain's skillful angling of the craft. The smell of sulfur assaulted her nostrils as the loader expended spent shells and the smell of a thousands of discharging guns flowed in through the tank's ventilation.

Then, in an instant, she was outside. Night had long since yielded unto a blazing red day as small fires burned around her, trying their best to imitate the giant blazing torch that was the city of Vingt. The smells associating with a burning city combined with the sulfur to make a noxious odor which she had no chance but to inhale as she looked back towards her tank. Through the red fiery light which in which the city bathed, she saw three or four figures emerge clumsily from the wreck Walking like zombies, shocked and shambling, Filicia tried to look away from what was about to happen. Despite having re-watched this scene on replay before, its visage was still too much for her to handle—yet like a prisoner strapped into a chair, eyes forced open, she was unable to see anything else but this clip of the past.

A violent explosion startled her as she felt an infernal heat rush towards her. A blinding flash was quickly overcome by a quick rumbling of the ground as, despite still sitting down at the table, she felt her balance waver and her knees falter. Struggling to maintain her balance, she saw a charred husk of a tank through the thick noxious black smoke which surrounded it. Trying to take the opportunity and prove herself and her mind wrong, she tried to see past the rising black cloud, to see if her friends had somehow survived—if things weren't as bad as she had thought. But just as in her previous rehearsals, just as on that soul-crushing day, she saw nothing but the burnt metal and scrap that had once been a technological wonder. As the smell of fuel and burnt flesh began to waft toward her, her heart was reaching the climax of another ride on its emotional rollercoaster.

Patients which hadn't already noticed the shaking and catatonic woman were made aware when she flung herself onto the ground and into some offshoot of the fetal position, covering her tucked in head with her hands. As bright incendiary tracers bounced off the mech's shattered armor and enveloped her in a maze of light, she felt the paralyzing, nerve-racking whizz of bullets as they tried their best to find their target. Utterly terrified, she ran for her life, tears streaming in her eyes as she fled the red daylight into the shadow of night. There, she collapsed, exhausted and overloaded.

An orderly and a nurse had by this point arrived in the cafeteria. They walked calmly towards the shivering, disheveled girl. This was not done out of empathy or consideration but simply out of precaution. At any moment her fear could turn her into an angry and wild animal fending for its life. How easily she could grab a fork or a knife and make herself an actual threat. Even more importantly, this scene was a smoldering powder keg, a contagion which could spread to other patients and cause them to lose themselves along with her.

With a face that was displeased with today's mediocrity, the nurse primed a syringe as the orderly held her down with his body. Without the care that one would find in a blood clinic, she jammed it into her back. Five seconds went by as the needle slowly drained itself amidst the panting and incoherent rambling of the messy-haired blonde. So quiet was the atmosphere that if that syringe were to drop and fall to the ground, it would have been distinctly heard all the way from the first front row of tables all the way to the back of the kitchen. Some patients looked on in silence, while others used to such phenomenon or simply apathetic to it continued on with finished their meals. To Filicia, her fear and anxiety were slipping away. Her broken heart was being numbed by some magic. She felt sleep take over her—a welcomed gift to rescue her both from her exhaustion as well as the memories. In her feeling moments of consciousness, she wondered if Death was freeing her from this prison of confined misery.

As her body went limp, the two staff picked her up with little grace and carried her out of the cafeteria. The sounds of eating, the clanking of metal, and soft-spoken chatter slowly resumed.


	2. Chapter 2

The cold metal bed rattled to life as its occupant awoke from a deep slumber. Upon taking a peak to investigate the surroundings, eyelids hurried to close themselves as they were assaulted by a blinding light. For a second it was wondered whether what was being experienced was a dream or reality. Turning to the other side of the bed and hoping to rest a while longer, the pursuit was soon abandoned as they realized they were suddenly quite wide awake in reality and their body yearned to be free of its soft but cramped position on top of a rough and dirty mattress.

Letting out a sigh as she reluctantly sat herself up, Filicia Heidemann re-entered the world of the living, if only in the literal sense. She put her fingers to her eyes in an effort to wipe away the crud that had accumulated around them in the unknown number of hours she had spent asleep, gaining clearer and clearer vision with every sweep of motion. Finally, with a hand blocking the all-encompassing light, she could finally identify the culprit which had blinded her moments before—the solitary light in her room that never ceased to glow.

Filicia quickly realized it was indeed her room. The chipping of the paint that sort of looked like a face as well as the unique cracks in the floor spoke of as much. Yet despite it being __her__ room, it was also just like any other. There wasn't any furniture in her room. Not a chair, nor a table. The chipping paint was the only thing that could be described as "unique," and it was the only thing that Filicia remotely liked about the place. During the lonely nights, when the lights in the rooms would grow dim but not extinguish, she would look over at the chipped paint. Aside from the peculiar face that always stared back at her, she liked to think that the rest of the drooping chips were the wall crying alongside her, sharing a collective misery. The only thing separating her from the cold hard floor was a single skinny bed that always squeaked with the slightest of movement. On top of it was placed the dirty old mattress that Filicia had come to know intimately with each of its bumpy imperfections that always resulted in her waking up with an aching back. This was no different.

But unlike in most of such situations, it was not morning, for when she decided to get up and walk over to her window, peering through the bars that separated her from even a semblance of freedom, she was greeted with absolute blackness. Her own reflection peered back at her, revealing hair that surprised her for being especially more messy and unkempt than it usually was as well as a face that looked like it was decades older than the rest of her body. She immediately turn away in disgust, but not before being reminded of why she was here—the incident in the cafeteria. She felt her heart jump into her mouth as she remembered how her meal was interrupted by an unendurable flashback and then a drug-induced slumber. For a moment, she was worried for herself. Was something especially wrong with her to make her have an episode in the middle of a meal? But then she let out another large sigh, as she often did, and resigned herself to life.

 _ _Why am I even surprised anymore?__

And as she resigned herself to life, she finally noticed the meal tray that was lying near the meal-slot on her heavy iron door, covered with what the cooks there insisted was "food." She reckoned she would have to resign herself to that as well. With a zombie-like walk she fumbled over to pick up the tray, the cold metal being a welcome sensation from the near-suffocating heat that the light always produced in her small cell. With as little vigor, she made her way back to her bed, her sanctuary. It was the island of refuge in the abyss of an unforgiving hard floor, ugly colors and rampant decay, even if it itself was not exempt from these things. As she picked up the fork that came with it and began to dig in to the collective glob of what was at once several different dishes but now all combined into one, she wondered if it would be hot or cold.

A taste test revealed that it was indeed cold. She scolded herself, wondering why she ever thought that she would have had the luxury of warm food when it had been sitting there for Gods know how long. If only she didn't have that episode, she could have been in the cafeteria a few hours ago. At least then her meal wouldn't have been cold. Minutes passed by as she let her thoughts grind to a standstill, empty of thought or feeling as she silently ate what was supposed to be dinner. She tried at first to find all the globs of food and separate them into piles to try and obtain a semblance of a normal meal with a dish on every side. She tried to squint her eyes and pretend it she was eating a meal straight from the canteen when she was a private in training, but eventually gave up; she couldn't fool herself and was too exhausted for such things.

Just then, her brain was shocked back to life.

 _ _Why am I exhausted? I just spent the whole day asleep.__

But she knew the answer. She knew the answer all too well—she was tired of everything. She was tired of food that had comparable quality to that given to animals. She was tired of her small suffocating room that was hot enough to always make her sweat and make her clothes stick to her skin, warranting the feeble blankets always useless. She was sick of her mattress which caused her to wake up in pain every morning as well as the bed which sometimes felt like it would collapse on her. She was sick of her clothes which were always too thin to be of any use in the winter—the cause of many days and nights spent shivering in the corridors and under her blanket. She was fed up with the nurses and doctors that treated her more like a prisoner than a victim of war and a helpless witness to the illness of her own mind. She fumed steam as she lamented her frustrations when the doctors would force her to undergo monthly checkup, and how they would mock her by stating that her blood pressure was still "above normal" and that hypertension was a serious medical concern, as if she didn't know that already.

But most of all, she was tired of herself. She was tired of how little care she took of herself, allowing herself to walk around with messy hair and baggy eyes. But then again, she knew the answer to that as well; she wasn't that much of a person anymore. She was tired of allowing herself to give in to abandoning all hope and not thinking more positively, but she retorted back to herself that it could not be helped when an entire institution encourages you to lose yourself within its walls. As on many days, she thought of the memories when she was in uniform, when she was normal. She scoffed at herself; was she even the same person? Surely not!

Those bright blue eyes could not be hers, for they contatined within them a spark of life and a jewel of hope. Hers were empty and pale. That face could not be hers. Her skin was smooth and porous, showing off her youth. Hers now took on the image of a woman decades older, baggy and hanging from comparable undernourishment. That smile could not be hers, which betrayed a blissful innocence and a yearning for the future. Her innocence died with her friends, and she figured she had since lost the ability to smile, although she had become accustomed to doing it inverted.

 _ _Oh Gods, my friends__

She sputtered to a halt as she stood there in sorrow, dropping her dinner on the floor with a loud clang as metal met metal. She wished she was dead, that she could avoid the coming flood of emotions that were approaching like a tsunami. She had opened up pandora's box. A wave of hatred hit her like a bullet. Why did she have to think about these things? Why couldn't she move on with herself? It wasn't her fault, it wasn't her fault! She slapped herself in response to her own pleas—it __was__ her fault. It was her fault for being weak enough to waste away in an asylum over something she was blameless about, she knew that much. But that was her brain talking. Her heart gave her a slap of its own, yelling at her, denouncing her as selfish and conceded. She should have died with her friends. She was the most worthy of death, and they were the most worthy of life.

 _ _No, it's not my fault. Get on with yourself!__

Her soul shouted to object. She didn't deserve to get on with her life. Why was it that her commander and her dearest comrades, who were so smart in their knowledge, energetic in their youth, and courageous in battle were meant to die? Why were they, who were like big sisters to her, who taught her how to survive the deadly boredom of military life intermixed with the far more deadlier days of combat, meant to suffer? Yet her, who was a know-nothing, who was too scared of thunder, much less guns and bullets, to be of any use in combat; she was the one who survived? She felt physically sick as she considered the twisted justice that the Gods had allowed to be played out.

She allowed herself to fall to the floor and curled up on it, welcoming its hard emotionless form as a fitting companion. Tears began to run down her cheeks as she once again reflected the hellish things that conspired against her on a daily basis to make her life a torture. The environment, the flashbacks, and most importantly, herself—her pathetic self which was a far cry from the proud and positive youthful girl she had been only months before.

"Gods, please end me!" she mumbled to herself in the midst of suffocating sobs, interrupted by the cries that she attempted to muffle. "I'm tired of living a life I don't deserve!"

"Then why don't you __end__ it?"

Her cries stopped and she held her breath as the cold raspy voice made itself heard as a quiet suggestion seemingly far off and faint. She slowly exhaled, shaking with fear and trying to control her sobs as she realized the owner of that voice.

 _D-_ _ _Did I make that voice?"__

She wondered if she had simply imagined it; was it simply her PTSD reliving one of the weirder moments from her time at Vingt? Was she now expected to suffer from auditory hallucinations as well? For a brief moment she let a flow of frustration enter her as she lamented the possibility that she was getting __worse__ , not better. But in the next instant she was at peace, a somber peace. Just as the criminal on the gallows resigns himself to his death, she was beginning to learn to funnel all feelings of anger and frustration out and to resign herself to her own mental and spiritual death.

With such apathy she calmed herself and looked over to her dinner tray which had some of its contents spilled out around it. With the motions of an old woman she worked herself back onto her knees and recovered the tray, scooping up the food that had fallen onto the floor, and sitting back on her bed. __Let me enjoy my dinner in peace__ , she thought to herself.

"END IT!"

The voice which had originally sounded so distant and far away now sounded as if its mouth were right up against her left ear. She shuddered from the unexpected fright and nearly dumped her dinner tray for a second time. She looked over her shoulder to see the figure, the same figure she saw in the undergrounds of Vingt. Wearing a torn military uniform that still looked foreign to her and still staring at her with a blank skeletal expression that alternated between apathy and menacing hatred.

"W-What do you want?" Filicia asked, trying to hide her fright.

"You haven't forgotten me," the figure said. It's bony decomposing face stretched and contorted to make the same hideous smile that she still remembered vividly. Decomposing joints and muscles seem to creak and snap as they were strained to create such a horrid picture; she half-expected the creature to have torn something and for its jaw to fall from its face. Yet it remained intact, exposing rotten teeth in an otherwise dark cavernous mouth.

The figure was right. Filicia hadn't forgotten him. How could she forget something like him? He was the last act of the horrid tragedy that played out in Vingt months ago—her friends dying gave her agony, and his words gave her apathy. She needn't remind herself of his physical appearance which by itself presented a scarring image. Yet after the initial shock from his appearance, she felt herself returning back to her usual state. What did it matter that he was here? It couldn't make her situation any worse, and if he intended to stay as company it could even improve her situation by allowing her someone to converse with, something she hadn't done in a long time.

Nevertheless she repeated her question: "What do you want?"

"Humanity," it began, "is finished. The oceans are sterile, the land is torn and ripped apart by craters. Bodies litter the ground of ruined cities."

Filicia felt largely unperturbed; she had known all this things, even experienced them herself. The creature, noticing that she did not seem to react, continued to explain.

"When I was soldier, like you, I had a reason to fight. The world was full of life. Japan, the world, was prosperous. But then everything fell apart."

Filicia was till unsure of what he was getting at. She did not know what 'Japan' was, but was thus far unimpressed with his retelling of an obvious history.

"It was all __worthless__!" the being suddenly shouted, agitated by her lack of a response. "The entire world, my friends, family, everything I knew was obliterated. My life and all its meaning ceased to exist just because a dozen people I knew left this wretched life. Isn't it __funny__?" The being titled its head as if asking for confirmation before going on, "Once the bombs start falling and people start dying, you realize how worthless human life is. It can be taken for a yen and never given back. How much do we matter if our entire existence, thousands of years of history, can be erased by simple human hubris? Life is short and all that takes place in it will ultimately disappear like sand blown away in the wind. Humanity is nothing."

Although still putting on an uncaring air, she could agree with the former soldier. Her friends—her lifeline to sanity—had been taken away from her before she could comprehend that it happened. They had each lived good lives and lived them well, yet in the end they ultimately perished as unceremoniously as the common vagabond within the blink of an eye; they did not even receive a proper burial. All the love and joy of their personalities, all the memories that they had carried from their youth up were snuffed out in an instant by an explosion that reduced them to charred stiffs. She meekly nodded to the being to show her affirmation.

"And humanity still hasn't learned its lesson. It still fights over ever-shrinking and deteriorating scraps of land. How long until this place and all around are nothing but a pile of rubble? It's pathetic. Almost as pathetic as __me__."

With the last sentence Filicia looked at him with renewed attention, wondering what he was intending to say. The soldier began to go down a different branch of conversation. "I thought I could save my world. My comrades and I. But it was foolish to presume that I was worthy of such grandeur. Instead I died like millions of others and rotted underground for years." With that the creature looked directly at Filicia, almost staring into her. "You were like that, weren't you?"

Filicia's calm demeanor dissolved as she was flooded with more emotions. "What are you talking about?" she said, attempting to defend herself. But deep down inside, she knew what his words meant. Although she spoke with firmness and a facade of pride, her now-drooping head signified the erosion of her dignity and the encroachment of well-known self-hatred.

"You were a young girl, at least from looking at you now. You had hope. An innocent outlook on life derided from the complete inability to comprehend the situation that you found yourself in—a soldier on a dying planet fighting for the last scraps of civilization." The soldier then proceeded to cut to the chase, "You know how pathetic it was to believe that you could save your friends."

"I knew that I couldn't save my friends!" she shouted, called to defend herself.

"But you still wanted to. And when you realized you couldn't and that they died while you lived, you let yourself turn into what you are know."

The being's words shot through Filicia; they were true. She didn't bother to question how he knew these things about her. Whether he had been observing her the whole time or was just extremely perceptive did not matter to her. She was angry at herself that she found herself in agreement with him. Why did she agree with him, someone who has haunted her memories as much as the death of her friends, in her lack of worth? Filicia's head sunk even lower as the creature's words created a tighter and tighter net around her.

"Now you must understand," the soldier concluded, "I know you better than you know yourself. I know you understand my words. So," he said, letting out another terrifying sadistic smile that stretched from ear to ear, "END IT!"

Filicia did not know what to do. While he mouth let out "Stop following me, leave me alone," her mind was forced to resign itself in alignment with him. What choice should she take but to end it? Her friends were dead, she was worthless for not helping them and for allowing herself to get into this whole situation, and there would be no salvation for her. She looked at the soldier and nodded once more in agreement.

With that settled, he pointed to the dinner tray that she had some minutes ago sat beside her on the bed. A quick look at it revealed what the being was pointing at, the knife. Questions came to her that she had never considered when she first noticed the dinner tray by her door: why was she given a knife? Why did this knife appear to be a professional knife that belonged in a kitchen or beside a plate of tough meat instead of the dull and un-serrated knives that she was usually lucky to be given? At this point she did not ponder on the mystery; perhaps fate intended this to happen?

Slowly grabbing the knife and pulling it towards her, she reflected in thought. Her thoughts, jumping from memory to memory as if conscious of the fact that it would be the last time to relive them, brought her back to the company of her friends as they stood on a windy coast. With the both of them gazing out into the sterile sea, her captain asked her, "Did you hear about how the world is ending and soon there won't be any humans left?"

"Thats just a rumor!" Filicia retorted, startled by the prospect.

"But if it's true, then what are we fighting for?"

Filicia stood there silently, unable to give another response. At that time, her superior made her consider a startling thought—is everything she's known for nothing? Her life, full of sadness and sorrows, rendered worthless as the world collapses around it? She looked into the bleak water of the rough and surging wages that harbored no sign of life and wondered if the world would truly be completely encompassed by an equally lifeless void. Her heart sank as the plausibility of such an outcome became more and more valid; humanity had already destroyed itself, now mother nature was taking over. For what did the war matter and whom would it profit if mankind was destined to become extinct as the final consequence of the deeds of dead ancestors?

"The world has no meaning," her captain again stated. At this point, Filicia wondered what she was getting at, if there was some point she was trying to make. Immediately, however, her concerns were relieved when that point was made clear.

"But you can always make your own." With that remark, the captain ushered everyone back into the mech. "Rest time's over, we have a rendezvous to be at." Filicia felt satisfied with the concept; even if the world is ending, that doesn't mean there's no point in continuing to live. She was quickly drawn away from considering what __her__ meaning of life was, her attention being focused on performing her job.

Filicia now looked down at the knife that was prepared to enter her.

 _ _Meaning of life?__

Filicia contemplated how her commander's words related to her, but she could not find anything. Yet those words spoke to her despite he inability to relate to them. Why she only remembered them now, after all this time and at this moment of desolation, she knew not; what mattered is that they came to her at all. It seemed to her that she could hear her friends voices attempting to cross over from the other world to comfort her. It appeared to her that she could reach for their hands from beyond the grave if she only tried hard enough. Her heart sputtered with raw hope as she discerned the possibility that she was being forgiven for her failures—was she being given a chance for penance?

The vision of the cold knife pressing into the delicate, fragile hospital gown became cloudy and indiscernible as tears filled her eyes. It had been a long time since she had done so, and even long since she had done so for herself. She heard the knife drop from her hands as it made contact with the hard floor.

"No."

While it was only whispered, the apparent absolution of her sins gave her a rush of energy. The word of defiance cheered her on as she stood up with determination and turned around to face her tormentor while tears still disrupted her vision. The lost words of her lost friends gave her redemption, freeing her from her guilt.

"My life…"

Her words stopped as she contemplated the words she was about to pronounce. Foreign feelings overwhelmed her like drugs overwhelm a first-time user with an nonparallel experience that fails to be matched again. While they were not drugs, their potency insisted that they might as well have been. Feelings that had long been denied her broke through the ramparts and parapets that isolation and detachment had long ago erected. She felt happiness as she began to forgive herself as her friends seemed to have forgiven her. She wondered, perhaps, if she was always forgiven?

"My life is important!"

The entity stared back at her, unmoved by her new-found determination.

"My friends—they want me to live! They forgive me and want me to move on!"

If the entity had hair, it would have raised an eyebrow in sarcastic curiosity. "And how will you move on?"

Filicia was only able to answer with silence, for she herself did not know the answer. She replied to him with as much.

"I don't know! But all I need to know now is that my friends want me to live; whatever my purpose is, I'll find it!"

Where before was proud skepticism, the entity now showed displeasure at Filicia's development. Ever since their paths crossed in the darkness of the underground one night in Vingt, the ethereal being never let go of her. It had spent an untold amount of time that boredom afforded it to silently brew in its increasing hatred for humanity and the world that it once lived in. To leave the one soul who happened to come across them, to leave the person who infuriated them with her innocent naivete, to see that naivete shattered through the death of her friends and her internment in an asylum—all those things were fulfilling to them.

Filicia shared an equal amount of distaste and surprised even herself when she ordered it gone.

"Leave! Now! Get out of my head and get out of my life!"

The entity knew it was currently futile to continue. It drew considerable satisfaction from the knowledge that it would hardly be so easily banished, however. Filicia breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it disappear before her, leaving her once again in solitude. Yet now it was not so crushing.

Filicia looked at the dinner tray which still sat on the cold hard floor. She picked it up and sat down on her small, skinny bed and took a bite. It was cold. Yet she continued to eat nonetheless with a smile upon her face.

She was absolved.


End file.
